Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bass-guitarist and keyboardist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. Their combination of a heavy electric-guitar sound with elements of blues and folk music popularised album-oriented rock and stadium rock and established them as the progenitor of hard rock and heavy metal. They are amongst the best-selling music artists of all time, with an estimated 200 to 300 million records sold worldwide.
Led Zeppelin evolved from a previous band, the Yardbirds, and were originally named "the New Yardbirds". They signed a deal with Atlantic Records that gave them artistic freedom. Although it was initially critically unpopular, their music achieved both critical and commercial success in eight studio albums over ten years.
Their 1969 debut, Led Zeppelin, was a top-ten album in several countries and features such tracks as "Good Times Bad Times", "Dazed and Confused" and "Communication Breakdown". Led Zeppelin II (1969), their first number-one album, includes "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", and "Ramble On". In 1970, they released Led Zeppelin III which opens with "Immigrant Song" and contains "Since I've Been Loving You". Their untitled fourth album, which is commonly known as Led Zeppelin IV (1971) and is one of the best-selling albums in history, with 37 million copies sold, includes "Black Dog", "Rock and Roll", "The Battle of Evermore" (which was their only song to feature a guest singer—Sandy Denny), and "Stairway to Heaven", the latter of which is amongst the most popular and influential works of rock music. Houses of the Holy (1973) includes "The Song Remains the Same", "The Rain Song", and "No Quarter". Physical Graffiti (1975), a double album, features "Trampled Under Foot" and "Kashmir".
Page composed most of Led Zeppelin's music, while Plant wrote most of the lyrics. Jones occasionally originated songs with keyboard parts, particularly on the band's final album. During the first half of the 1970s they performed a series of record-breaking tours that provoked a reputation for hedonism. During the second half of the 1970s, in which they released Presence (1976) and In Through the Out Door (1979), they remained commercially and critically successful but the frequency and quality of their touring declined as a consequence of Page's heroin addiction. They disbanded after Bonham's death from alcoholism in 1980, after which the three surviving members have only sporadically collaborated for concerts, including the 2007 Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in London, which featured Bonham's son Jason Bonham on drums, the recording of which was released to acclaim in 2012 as Celebration Day.
Led Zeppelin achieved eight consecutive UK number-one albums and six number-one albums on the US Billboard 200, with five of their albums certified Diamond in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Rolling Stone described them as "the heaviest band of all time", "the biggest band of the seventies", and "unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history". They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995: its museum's biography states that Led Zeppelin were "as influential" in the 1970s as the Beatles were in the 1960s. In 2025, Forbes magazine ranked Led Zeppelin as the best rock band of all time.
History Formation: 1966–1968
In 1966, London-based session guitarist Jimmy Page joined the blues-influenced rock band the Yardbirds to replace bassist Paul Samwell-Smith. Page soon switched from bass to lead guitar, creating a dual-lead-guitar lineup with Jeff Beck. Following Beck's departure in October 1966, the Yardbirds became a four-piece with Page as the sole guitarist. This new line-up recorded an album, Little Games, in 1967, before embarking on a tour of the United States. In early April 1968, the Yardbirds held a recording session at Columbia Studios in New York City, recording a number of tracks including a Page-Relf composition initially titled "Knowing That I'm Losing You", which was eventually re-recorded by Led Zeppelin as "Tangerine".
The Yardbirds' 1968 tour proved to be exhausting for the band. Drummer Jim McCarty and vocalist Keith Relf aimed to move in a more acoustic direction, forming a folk rock duo which would eventually evolve into the group Renaissance. Page, on the other hand wanted to continue the heavier blues-based sound he had established with the Yardbirds. With the support of the Yardbirds' new manager Peter Grant, Page planned to form a supergroup with Beck and himself on guitars, and The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle on drums and bass, respectively. Vocalists Steve Winwood and Steve Marriott were also considered for the project. The group never formed, although Page, Beck, and Moon had recorded a song together in 1966, "Beck's Bolero", in a session that also included bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones.
The Yardbirds played their final gig on 7 July 1968 at Luton College of Technology in Bedfordshire. They were still committed to several concerts in Scandinavia, so McCarty and Relf authorised Page and bassist Chris Dreja to use the Yardbirds' name to fulfill the band's obligations. Page and Dreja began putting a new line-up together. Page's first choice for the lead singer was Terry Reid, but Reid declined the offer and suggested Robert Plant, a singer for the Band of Joy and Hobbstweedle. Plant eventually accepted the position, recommending former Band of Joy drummer John Bonham. John Paul Jones enquired about the vacant position of bass guitarist, at the suggestion of his wife, after Dreja dropped out of the project to become a photographer. Page had known Jones since they were both session musicians, and agreed to let him join as the final member.
In August 1968, the four played together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London. Page suggested that they attempt "Train Kept A-Rollin'", originally a jump blues song popularised in a rockabilly version by Johnny Burnette, which had been covered by the Yardbirds. "As soon as I heard John Bonham play", Jones recalled, "I knew this was going to be great ... We locked together as a team immediately". Before leaving for Scandinavia, the group took part in a recording session for the P. J. Proby album Three Week Hero. The album's track "Jim's Blues", with Plant on harmonica, was the first studio track to feature all four future members of Led Zeppelin.
The band completed the Scandinavian tour as the New Yardbirds, playing together for the first time in front of a live audience at Gladsaxe Teen Club at the Egegård School (today Gladsaxe School) festive hall, Gladsaxe, Denmark, on 7 September 1968. Later that month, they began recording their first album, which was based on their live set. The album was recorded and mixed in nine days, and Page covered the costs. After the album's completion, the band were forced to change their name after Dreja issued a cease and desist letter, stating that Page was allowed to use the New Yardbirds moniker for the Scandinavian dates only. One account of how the new band's name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon", an idiom for being very unsuccessful or unpopular. The group dropped the 'a' in lead at the suggestion of Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it "leed". The word "balloon" was replaced by "zeppelin", a word which, according to music journalist Keith Shadwick, brought "the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace" to Page's mind.
Grant secured a $143,000 advance contract ($ today) from Atlantic Records in November 1968—at the time, the biggest deal of its kind for a new band. Atlantic was a label with a catalogue of mainly blues, soul, and jazz artists, but in the late 1960s, it began to take an interest in British progressive rock acts. At the recommendation of British singer Dusty Springfield, a friend of Jones who at the time was completing her first Atlantic album, Dusty in Memphis, record executives signed Led Zeppelin without having ever seen them. Under the terms of their contract, the band had autonomy in deciding when they would release albums and tour and had the final say over the contents and design of each album. They would also decide how to promote each release and which tracks to release as singles. They formed their own company, Superhype, to handle all publishing rights.
Early years: 1968–1970 Still billed as the New Yardbirds, the band began their first tour of the UK on 4 October 1968, when they played at the Mayfair Ballroom in Newcastle upon Tyne. Their first show as Led Zeppelin was at the University of Surrey in Guildford on 25 October. Tour manager Richard Cole, who would become a major figure in the touring life of the group, organised their first North American tour at the end of the year. Their debut album, Led Zeppelin, was released in the US in January 1969 during the tour, and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard chart; it was released in the UK, where it peaked at number 6, on 31 March. According to Steve Erlewine, the album's memorable guitar riffs, lumbering rhythms, psychedelic blues, groovy, bluesy shuffles and hints of English folk music made it "a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal".
In their first year, Led Zeppelin completed four US and four UK concert tours, and also released their second album, Led Zeppelin II. Recorded mostly on the road at various North American studios, it was an even greater commercial success than their first album and reached the number one chart position in the US and the UK. The album further developed the mostly blues-rock musical style established on their debut release, creating a sound that was "heavy and hard, brutal and direct", and which would be highly influential and frequently imitated. Steve Waksman has suggested that Led Zeppelin II was "the musical starting point for heavy metal".
The band saw their albums as indivisible, complete listening experiences, disliking the re-editing of existing tracks for release as singles. Grant maintained an aggressive pro-album stance, particularly in the UK, where there were few radio and TV outlets for rock music. Without the band's consent, however, some songs were released as singles, particularly in the US. In 1969, an edited version of "Whole Lotta Love", a track from their second album, was released as a single in the US. It reached number four in the Billboard chart in January 1970, selling over one million copies and helping to cement the band's popularity. The group also increasingly shunned television appearances, citing their preference that their fans hear and see them in live concerts.
Following the release of their second album, Led Zeppelin completed several more US tours. They played initially in clubs and ballrooms, and then in larger auditoriums as their popularity grew. Some early Led Zeppelin concerts lasted more than four hours, with expanded and improvised live versions of their repertoire. Many of these shows have been preserved as bootleg recordings. It was during this period of intensive concert touring that the band developed a reputation for off-stage excess.